Main
Connor M. French
I have made visualizations viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, sped up query times for 25 terabytes of data by an average of 4,800 times, and built packages for R that let you do magic.
Education
PhD Student, Biology- Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
New York, New York
City University of New York
current - 2018
- Population genetic patterns and processes from local to global scales
- Graduate Center Digital Fellow
M.S., Zoology
Carbondale, Illinois
Southern Illinois University
2018 - 2016
- Systematics, phylogeography, and landscape genetics of the Ameerega petersi group (family Dendrobatidae)
- Cooperative Wildlife Research Lab
B.S., Biology- Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
Austin, Texas
University of Texas
2015 - 2011
Research Experience
Research Assistant
Texas Biodiversity Collections
University of Texas
Current - 2016
- Herpetology Division
- Supported data collection and collections management for conservation efforts.
Graduate Research Assistant
Michael J. Hickerson Lab
City University of New York
current - 2018
- Investigating evolutionary responses to environmental change across spatial scales.
Graduate Research Assistant
Jason L. Brown Lab
Southern Illinois University
2018 - 2016
- Completed thesis work on the evolution of Andean poison frogs.
Undergraduate Researcher
Daniel I. Bolnick Laboratory
University of Texas
2014 - 2013
- Completed an independent project through the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates. Experimental design, field work in British Columbia, lab work, data analysis, and first-author publication.
Undergraduate Researcher
David Cannatella Laboratory
University of Texas
2014 - 2013
- Field work in support of frog acoustic research.
Field Technician
Middlesex, Belize
Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society
2014 - 2014
- Designed and executed field protocols for monitoring amphibian populations.
Collections Assistant
Texas Biodiversity Collections
University of Texas
2014 - 2014
- Ichthyology Division
- Collected and analyzed fish morphometric data for taxonomic research and digitized research collections.
Teaching Experience
I am passionate about education. I believe that no topic is too complex if the teacher is empathetic and willing to think about new methods of approaching task.
R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis
Columbia University
New York, NY
2021 - 2021
- Invited workshop.
- Half-day online workshop as part of the Pre-Statistics Course Bootcamp.
- Facilitated by Software Carpentries.
Introduction to Text Analysis in R
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2021 - 2021
- 1.5 hour online workshop for CUNY Graduate Center faculty and students.
- Hosted on rstudio.cloud.
- Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows.
Digital Research Institute
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2021 - 2020
- Five day series of workshops introducing CUNY faculty and students to digital tools for research.
- Two sessions- one in January 2020 and one in February 2021.
- Led the R track.
Reproducible Data Analysis in R
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2020 - 2020
- 2.5 hour workshop on using RMarkdown and github for reproducible data analysis.
- Hosted within the workr R package as an interactive tutorial.
- Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows
Data Visualization in R
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2020 - 2020
- 2.5 hour workshop on using ggplot2 for data visualization.
- Hosted within the workr R package as an interactive tutorial.
- Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows
Exploring population structure in R with adegenet and sNMF
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2020 - 2020
- 1.5 hour online workshop given to an international group of evolutionary biology faculty and graduate students as part of the four day Bioinformatics Bootcamp for Ecology and Evolution.
Introduction to R and RStudio
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2020 - 2020
- Two hour online workshop for CUNY Graduate Center faculty and students.
- Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows.
Introduction to population structure inference in R
SIUC Zoology Department
Carbondale, IL
2019 - 2019
- Invited workshop.
- Two hour workshop for Zoology graduate and undergraduate students.
Introductory R and RStudio
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2019 - 2019
- Invited workshop.
- 1.5 hour workshop for graduate students in the Quantitative Zoogeography graduate course.
Bioinformatic processing of ultraconserved elements for phylogenetic analysis
SIUC Zoology Department
Carbondale, IL
2019 - 2019
- Two hour workshop to introduce graduate students to a bioinformatic pipeline.
SLiM 5-day workshop
CUNY Biology Department
New York, NY
2019 - 2019
- Co-organized five full-day workshop on SLiM population genetic simulation program
Data Wrangling in R
CUNY Graduate Center
New York, NY
2019 - 2019
- 2.5 hour workshop on using the tidyverse for data manipulation.
- Hosted within the workr R package as an interactive tutorial.
- Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows
BioSkills
SIUC Biology Department
Carbondale, IL
2018 - 2017
- TA, BIO 212
- Co-developed material for new writing and discussion-based course section.
- Concurrently ran ecology and developmental biology sections.
Introduction to Evolution and Ecology Lab
SIUC Biology Department
Carbondale, IL
2017 - 2017
- TA, BIO 212
- Led and prepared labs.
Vertebrate Anatomy Lab
SIUC Zoology Department
Carbondale, IL
2017 - 2017
- TA, ZOOL 418
- Led and prepared labs.
- Advised undergraduate lab assistant.
Reptile and amphibian survey and capture techniques
SIUC Zoology Department
Carbondale, IL
2017 - 2017
- Invited lecture, Curation of Collections (PLB 401).
- One hour lecture on best practices for herpetological surveys.
Appropriate techniques for identifying and handling reptiles and amphibians in the field.
SIUC Zoology Department
Carbondale, IL
2017 - 2017
- Invited lecture, SIUC Wildlife Techniques (ZOOL 469).
- One hour lecture and field demonstration on best practices for herpetological surveys.
Introductory Biology for Non-Majors Lab
SIUC Zoology Department
Carbondale, IL
2016 - 2016
- TA, ZOOL 115
- Led and prepared labs.
Instructor
Camp Einstein Afterschool STEM Program
Austin, TX
2016 - 2016
- Summer afterschool program for early elementary school students.
Biostatistics
UT Biology Department
Austin, TX
2015 - 2014
- Undergraduate TA
- Assisted graduate TA with leading and grading R programming labs, and facilitating course discussion.
Selected Data Science Writing
I regularly blog about data science and visualization on my blog LiveFreeOrDichotomize.
The Traveling Metallurgist
LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
N/A
2017
- Pure javascript implementation of traveling salesman solution using simulated annealing.
- Allows reader to customize the number and location of cities to attempt to trick the algorithm.
Selected Press (About)
Great paper? Swipe right on the new ‘Tinder for preprints’ app
Science
N/A
2017 - 2017
- Story of the app Papr made with Jeff Leek and Lucy D’Agostino McGowan.
Swipe right for science: Papr app is ‘Tinder for preprints’
Nature News
N/A
2017 - 2017
- Second press article for app Papr.
The Deeper Story in the Data
University of Vermont Quarterly
N/A
2016 - 2016
- Story on my path post graduation and the power of narrative.
Selected Press (By)
The Great Student Migration
The New York Times
N/A
2016 - 2016
- Most shared and discussed article from the New York Times for August 2016.
Wildfires are Getting Worse, The New York Times
The New York Times
N/A
2016 - 2016
- GIS analysis and modeling of fire patterns and trends
- Data in collaboration with NASA and USGS
Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?
The New York Times
N/A
2016 - 2016
- Data scraped from CSPAN records to figure out who talked and past conventions.
Who’s Speaking at the Republican National Convention?
The New York Times
N/A
2016 - 2016
- Used same data scraping techniques as Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?
A Trail of Terror in Nice, Block by Block
The New York Times
N/A
2016 - 2016
- Led research effort to put together story of 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in less than 12 hours.
- Work won Silver medal at Malofiej 2017, and gold at Society of News and Design.
Selected Publications, Posters, and Talks
Building a software package in tandem with machine learning methods research can result in both more rigorous code and more rigorous research
ENAR 2020
N/A
2020
- Invited talk in Human Data Interaction section.
- How and why building an R package can benefit methodological research
Stochastic Block Modeling in R, Statistically rigorous clustering with rigorous code
RStudio::conf 2020
N/A
2020
- Invited talk about new sbmR package.
- Focus on how software development and methodological research can improve both benefit when done in tandem.
PheWAS-ME: A web-app for interactive exploration of multimorbidity patterns in PheWAS
Bioinformatics
N/A
2020
- Manuscript detailing application for the exploration of multimorbidity patterns in PheWAS analyses
- See landing page for more information.
Charge Reductions Associated with Shortening Time to Recovery in Septic Shock
Chest
N/A
2019 - 2019
- Authored with Wesley H. Self, MD MPH; Dandan Liu, PhD; Stephan Russ, MD, MPH; Michael J. Ward, MD, PhD, MBA; Nathan I. Shapiro, MD, MPH; Todd W. Rice, MD, MSc; Matthew W. Semler, MD, MSc.
Multimorbidity Explorer | A shiny app for exploring EHR and biobank data
RStudio::conf 2019
N/A
2019 - 2019
- Contributed Poster. Authored with Yaomin Xu.
Taking a network view of EHR and Biobank data to find explainable multivariate patterns
Vanderbilt Biostatistics Seminar Series
N/A
2019 - 2019
- University wide seminar series.
Patient-specific risk factors independently influence survival in Myelodysplastic Syndromes in an unbiased review of EHR records
Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
N/A
2019
- Bayesian network analysis used to find novel subgroups of patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS).
- Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.
Patient specific comorbidities impact overall survival in myelofibrosis
Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
N/A
2019
- Bayesian network analysis used to find robust novel subgroups of patients with given genetic mutations.
- Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.
R timelineViz: Visualizing the distribution of study events in longitudinal studies
Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
N/A
2018 - 2018
- Authored with Alex Sunderman of the Vanderbilt Department of Epidemiology.
Continuous Classification using Deep Neural Networks
Vanderbilt Biostatistics Qualification Exam
N/A
2017 - 2017
- Review of methods for classifying continuous data streams using neural networks
- Successfully met qualifying examination standards
Asymmetric Linkage Disequilibrium: Tools for Dissecting Multiallelic LD
Journal of Human Immunology
N/A
2015 - 2015
- Authored with Richard Single, Vanja Paunic, Mark Albrecht, and Martin Maiers.
An Agent Based Model of Mysis Migration
International Association of Great Lakes Research Conference
N/A
2015 - 2015
- Authored with Brian O’Malley, Sture Hansson, and Jason Stockwell.
Declines of Mysis diluviana in the Great Lakes
Journal of Great Lakes Research
N/A
2015 - 2015
- Authored with Peter Euclide and Jason Stockwell.